If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Agree on Stokes. Like trapp or loath him he's a man of principal. Fair fucks to him. Done the same with Reid and Ireland and even with all the whinging they have both all but disappeared. Bad attitude will always out.

Agree on Stokes. Like trapp or loath him he's a man of principal. Fair fucks to him. Done the same with Reid and Ireland and even with all the whinging they have both all but disappeared. Bad attitude will always out.

Ireland told Trap to fuck off, not the other way around. And Reid has only disappeared if you think football begins and ends with the EPL. He's playing at the same level as Fahey and Andrews. Darron Gibson isn't playing at all.

Agree, Best should definitely be in the squad. Wacthed him against Spurs the week before last and his all-round game has come on leaps and bounds.

He started twice for Blackpool last season, and 7 times for Forest this year

He's start 16 league games in the last 2 seasons

Fair enough re: Blackpool last season.

16 league starts in the last two seasons? If you count the first 10 weeks of this season as a whole season, maybe. He was a regular in the Sunderland side the year before last. Louise Taylor wrote a decent piece demonstrating how his absence from the starting XI coincided with Darren Bent's drought.

yea thought hoolahan might have been in the squad to be honest,same with best as he's been good for club.glad stokes isnt in either to be honest.think keane shud be drop kicked aswell,past it in my opinion

By Daniel McDonnell
Monday October 31 2011
LEON BEST has admitted that he was "baffled" and "confused" after being left out of the Ireland squad for the Euro 2012 play-off with Estonia.

And the Newcastle striker has encouraged Giovanni Trapattoni to pick up the phone and speak to his employers if he has reservations about his work-rate.

The in-form frontman, who will line out against Stoke this evening if he has shaken off a bout of tonsillitis, is aggrieved to miss out on the squad for the showdown with the Baltic nation, although Trapattoni did indicate that Best would come into the reckoning if Shane Long is a confirmed absentee.

However, the 25-year-old striker has been more interested in recent newspaper comments from the Italian about his aptitude. The Irish boss suggested that Best needs to work harder for the team.

"Every time it's mentioned, it baffles me," Best said. "He only needs to ring up Newcastle and ask for my stats.

"The ProZone will tell you I'm doing nearly 10km a game. I don't know what it is. If he's saying I need to work harder, then I need to work harder. He's a man to learn off, he's got the experience and he knows what he wants."

Last week, Best revealed that it's been so long since he has heard from the Irish camp that when he rang a member of staff to enquire about the situation -- Pat Costello from the international department -- he didn't realise that he no longer worked for the FAI.

"I haven't got anyone's number apart from the security, and I don't feel I'm in a position to ring Trapattoni and start asking him why he's not picked me," continued the Nottingham-born target-man, who spent part of his youth in Dublin.

"It doesn't upset me really because I'm enjoying playing for Newcastle so much because it's the best point of my career. I'm delighted playing every week in front of 50,000 fans.

"But it's just made me step back and think, what's gone on here? What have I done wrong? What do I need to do? I was getting in the squad when I was in the Championship and not playing every week. It's totally baffled me, confused me."